Where Have All The Good Cards Gone?

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Posted By: Bruce Dorskind

Over the past six months or so, we have noticed a marked decrease
in the volume of rare high grade c, d, e and t cards on E-Bay.

The number of high grade cards from the more exotic sets has
fallen precipitously. In fact, if one eliminates three sets
T201, T202 and T 206, cards offered in grades 7 and above
from the total number of desirable c, d, e and t cards offered
in these grades falls under 10 a month.

Whilst some of these more desirable items find their way into
one of the major auction house catalogs, we sense there is
a great resistance to sell or at least to auction without a very
high reserve.

Our best success during the past six months has emanated from
an aggressive advertising effort and from selected major auction
house wins. It is too bad that E Bay is continuing to dry up
as a source for the best cards...it was more fun to bid and one
could avoid the 20% auction house premiums.

What has been your experience?


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: warshawlaw

All my life Ive never stopped to worry `bout a thing,
Open up and shout it out,an' never try to sing,
Wondering if Ive done it wrong,
Will this depression last for long,wont you tell me,
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Once we had an easy ride and always felt the same,
Time was on our side and we had everything to gain,
This could be like yesterday,
Is that me with your happy days,
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Ma and pa look back on all the things they used to do,
Never had no money and they always told the truth,
Daddy didnt need no little toys,
Mommy didnt need no little boys,
Wont you tell me,
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Yesterday was such an easy game for you to play,
Ah but then lets face it,things are easier today,
Yes you need some bringing down,
Get your feet back on the ground,
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.
Where have all the good cards gone.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Now that song's going to be going through my head all day.

-Al

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Posted By: Kenneth A. Cohen

That reminds me! I've been looking for a Ray Davies rookie card. In my opinion, one the most brilliant and underrated of them all.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Ray Davies spent quality time with a young Chrissie Hynde. We need to give him bonus points for that. And speaking of hijacking a thread, what is your favorite Kinks song.

I actually have two -- both sadly not played as often on the radio as they should be;

Rock and Roll Fantasy -- Far Better than the same titled but different song that Bad Company did

Come Dancing -- an astonishing comeback hit in circa 1983

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Weren't Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde married?

Favorite Kinks songs: "Victoria", "Lola", "Celluloid Heroes" and "Tired of Waiting for You"

Sorry, got carried away.

-Al

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Posted By: Rich Klein

I think Chrissie had a kid by Ray though; in the early 1980's Chrissie got around a bit.

Great song in Celluoid Heroes; I missed that because I just went from memories.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: Kenneth A. Cohen

I was a huge fan of the Kinks in high school and college (late 60s - early 70s) and went to see them play probably 6 or 7 times - so the songs of that era tend to be my favorites. Really tough to pick one. I'll go with Waterloo Sunset from that time. For the real early stuff. hard to beat Tired of Waiting.

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Posted By: Robert Collet

"I'm Not Like Everybody Else" Originally the b-side to "Sunny Afternoon" from '66.

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Posted By: Bruce MacPherson

Favorite Kinks songs:

Til the End of the Day
Low Budget

Not sure if they were ever married, but I believe Ray did write "Stop Your Sobbing" a minor hit on the Pretenders first album. It's unbeliveable that she is in her mid 50's.

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Posted By: Steve f

Bruce,

I believe the Bargain Days are behind us too, with all forms of bb vintage. The vast pool of collectibles now reside in, my wag a few thousand prewar collections. It's likely a cyclic thing... Until we current hoarders keel over and our stash's are tossed back into the market by our heirs.

In the meantime old lacrosse, football, soccer and cricket cards are still affordable. ~

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Posted By: Scott

I would go with 20th Century Man (acoustic version)
Muswell Hillbillies is a great under the radar album. "album" - there's a word not used much anymore.

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Posted By: Jerry

You got to be kidding me.....Nobody mentions 2 Rock anthems "All Day and all of the Night" & "You really Got me". Actually my favorite is "A Well Respected man".



Don't Bogart those Good Cards.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

Bruce-

with all due respect...who is "we"?

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Posted By: Josh Adams

I believe all the high grade cards have gone to the garbage dump, along with all of the muffin stumps.

I saw it on the Pederman Reality Tour.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Jerry is right on with his selection of Kinks songs. I'd add Art Lover perhaps and Celluloid Heroes and Tired of Waiting for You. Oh, and Better Things. And Destroyer.

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Posted By: Jason L

1) increased activity over the past few years has resulted in cards landing in very satisfied, long-term collectors' hands (people that would need to see a 300% increase before parting with thier goods)

2) card doctoring is actually on the decline and less high grade material is available as a result

3) The market is slowing down with the slowdown in the Mortgage Equity Withdrawal (MEW) rate, as liquidity declines

Jason L
America's Easiest Wantlist (All in good fun)

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Posted By: Chad

Especially the two anthems, and I really like Apeman and On the Road.

As for high graded cards, if I had one, I wouldn't sell it on Ebay. If a couple high end collectors miss the auction, you'd leave a lot of money on the table not to mention there's a higher chance of dealing with a jackass on ebay than at a big time auction house. No way the big time collectors miss anything in Mastro or REA, so I'd probably entrust my cards to one of them. If I ever sell my best Cuban or Japanese stuff, I'd use a specialty auction house like cubanbaseballcards.com or prestige because I appreciate the work those sites do to educate and bring attention to those niches.

--Chad

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

100% agree with Chad on this. High end cards would be missed by qualified buyers and it only takes two guys to drive up the price. Plus with the new Ebay system. Many times buyers do not have the time to check every card. Now they have to worry about shill bidding on a high end item where they can not see who was under bidder. Most of the time we can recognize 90% of the bidders on high end items.

JC

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Jim and Chad, I disagree to a point. The problem with the auction houses is that with the 20% BP and 10-15% SP, a 20K card might end up netting the seller 15K. The same card on ebay might go slightly cheaper, let's say 17.5K but net the seller 17K. It is very difficult to buy a card from a major auction house and make any money from it within a year or two period because of the high fees.

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Posted By: Bob

I wanted so much to post the threads to "Where Have All the Good Cards Gone" by Peter, Paul and Mary but I'll refrain in the interest of not being called a thread hijacker.
I agree with the posts above as to where the highest quality pre-war cards have gone. I have posted before that more and more of these cards have found their way in to collections and will not resurface until the collectors face the Great Cardboard Heaven in the sky. Since many of the collectors are in their 50's now, I look for some really nice cards appearing in the 2030s.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

I just know on a high end card, any seller would want as many qualified buyer to see the item and feel comfortable bidding on it. Even though fees are involved I still think the price realized would out perform Ebay 8 out of 10 times. I'm only talking on cards valued over 3K.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Jim, I just sold a card on ebay for $16,500 that had it been on Mastro would have sold in the high $14K to mid $15K range. With juice, the card would have 'sold' for about 18K (all costs associated with the card) and the seller would have only netted about $13.5K. This is the problem with the large BPs and SPs at the auction houses.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

TBob theres 2 big problems with expecting those cards to hit the market. If collectors teach their children about the cards properly and they love the game the way their parent did then those collections might stay in families for generations. The other problem is,if someone collected the cards and they didnt have kids to leave them to,they could always be donated to a museum and therefore be off the market,or they could just say the heck with it,i collected the cards,im being buried with them and then the cards are gone forever.

Besides those 2 scenarios,theres also attrition which could lead to the decline of high grade stuff.For something to stay high grade that means nothing can ever happen to a card,whether it be something as drastic as a natural disaster like a flood which would ruin the card but not take it off the market,or something as small as someone mishandling a card while transferring it from one place to another

I think by 2030 most stuff we consider common will be pretty tough and some tough cards will be impossible.With something as common as t206s,theres close to 1000 of them in the mail going places every week and trading hands,and thousands more en route to card shows all the time.Thats alot of chances for something to happen to them

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Posted By: steve

I think PSA with their SMR price guide has prevented nice vintage from reaching the ebay market. Whats up with their PSA 5 & 6 prices for major HOF'ers - absurdly low. For example, I'ld sell the house to buy Colgan's Chips at SMR prices - come on, only $450 for a PSA 6 H.Wagner??? Most of us wouldn't sell at SMR prices, thus we keep our stuff. If SMR were to publish "true" prices, say, $7-800. for that PSA 6 Wagner, then more such items would make it to ebay market. Why does PSA publish SMR with crazy low vintage prices - is SMR a dealers "wholesale" guide ? Curious note - exception: the 1910 Sweet Cap Pins P2's seem way OVERpriced in SMR ???

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Bruce,

I think you are right.

I attribute it to the cards getting in stronger hands.

I also think some collectors are uncertain about buying an expensive card from someone they do not know on ebay.

Enjoy your posts(when they don't get sidetracked) and I certainly don't care if you use whilst or we or that you may appear condescending--with me its about the quality of the information and with you its usually high.

Jim

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Posted By: Bob

Steve- I agree with you, especially the P2 pins. Unless they make a huge jump, ala caramel cards, in the near future, I believe the SMRs are way too high.
tbob

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Posted By: Cobby33

There are plenty of good cards on eBay, B/S/T/, etc., specifically, the ones in the initial post that strated this thread.

People sometimes believe that because a particular card or cards are not specific ones that they want or need, that they don't exist. They do.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

yeah...i can't exactly figure out why the SMR is so low...i spoke to Joe O. last year about the topic specifically relating to T206, and he said they know it's low, and that the market prices are rising very fast...but if they doubled the prices (let's say), it would "jolt" the market. he went on to say that they have been and will continue to raise the pricing slowly each month to try to get it to an acceptable level...

i still think the SMR pricing is alarmingly low...but we'll see...

as long as the dealers and collectors know it is low, it can just be used as a "guide" which then can be multiplied, or estimated.

bruce- i think people are becoming smart to the fact that high-grade vintage cards are a super investment, so they are being gobbled-up and put away.

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Posted By: steve

Fewer nice vintage cards on market, yes. Its actually kind of amazing that the PSA/SGC vintage card prices are relatively low when compared to high end investment PCGS coins. When you get very low desireable coin pops, the prices can be staggering - 10's of thousands and much more. It seems the high end card market has a lot more headroom than high end coins. And all you get with a rare coin is an "S" mint mark over a "D" mint mark - woo the heck hoo - cards are WAY more cool.

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Posted By: David Smith

Bruce et all,

Along with the other reasons stated about "the good cards" drying up, another reason could be that people just aren't out looking any more.

I mean, I haven't been to an antique store or show, flea market or anything like that in a few years. I also haven't placed any want ads in newspapers in over 10 years. This is mostly because of financial reasons (why go or advertise when you don't have the money to buy anything good you might find?) but it is also because eBay makes things so simple. Just sit at your computer and browse all you want.

Used to, a lot of weekends when the weather was nice and I had time, I was out looking around at antique stores and asking if anyone had any old cards for sale. I bet there are/were others out there like me. I think now everyone is just looking at eBay and waiting for the other guy/girl to go out and beat the bushes and make the find and then sell it on eBay.

Within the last year, there was the Old Judge find (Dave Levin?) here in Indianapolis. Ever since then, I have wondered if I had placed an ad in the newspaper if I could have been the one to find the cards first. Of course, paying for them would have been another story but I would have at least got to see the cards and claim the find as mine.


David

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Posted By: warshawlaw

"i spoke to Joe O. last year about the topic specifically relating to T206, and he said they know it's low, and that the market prices are rising very fast...but if they doubled the prices (let's say), it would "jolt" the market. he went on to say that they have been and will continue to raise the pricing slowly each month to try to get it to an acceptable level..."

I thought the SMR was supposed to be a "report" on the market, not a series of arbitrarily set prices. How is there any value in a "report" that doesn't report?

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Posted By: Steve f

Just now recieved the new SMR. Tobacco has hardly moved ???, but caramels are up bigtime.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

very good point...i contacted Joe several times about this topic & sent him many completed eBay prices for market values...it really hasn't been elevated that much since...

T206 7's= 350?
T206 8's= 750?
T206 9's= 2200?

way off still...

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Michael,

SMR isn't off, it's a printing error like Magie....


Your post:
T206 7's= 350? should be 6's
T206 8's= 750? should be 7's
T206 9's= 2200? should be 8's

That's it subtract one from each grade and they are in the ballpark.


Be well Brian

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Posted By: MVSNYC

brian---right on the money...

although, 7's @ $750? i would buy them all day long at that price...

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Me too..... shhhhhh............ Be well Brian

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Posted By: Bruce MacPherson

"i spoke to Joe O. last year about the topic specifically relating to T206, and he said they know it's low, and that the market prices are rising very fast...but if they doubled the prices (let's say), it would "jolt" the market."

I typically collect e cards but have my share of t206s. I find it odd that PSA would deliberately keep prices low in their magazine to prevent a potential large upswing in prices. Just curious, does the SMR wield that much power to have a large effect on prices prewar card collectors pay on ebay?

According to Steve above, the caramels are up big in the SMR. I am not sure if that's a good thing, bad thing or irrelevant. I would bet on irrelevant.

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Posted By: Judson Hamlin

I think this raises the interesting question of what percentage of vintage cards are in circulation at any one time. Given the relatively small numbers of even common sets, would it take that many more collectors to hold their cards for the market to jump? You can't corner the market on 1987 Topps Jim Rice cards, even if you have 10,000, but would it be feasible to corner the market on a card/set if one or two collectors hoarded; or for that matter if 10 or 20 more people started collecting a particular set?

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Posted By: NickM

For commons, SMR appears realistic based on ebay sales (most PSA 7 and below sell at 75% to 100% of SMR). It's the HOFers who fall well short of SMR.

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Posted By: fkw

I like em all, but "Days" and "Sunny Afternoon" stand out.

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Posted By: Pcelli60

I have to admit. I zone out on the card description if the number is higher than 5...

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Posted By: peter chao

Judson,

There are some who believe it's possible to corner the market on a relatively scarce card. Apparently that's what happened with the '49 Leaf Satchel Paige. I know that the Paige is a scarce series, however, that still doesn't justify the $15,000+ price tag.

Rumors are there's a few investors out there that have bought up all the Paiges and are holding tight. Thus, the continuing increase in price.

Peter

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Posted By: Cat

I believe that the gravitation of the majority of "The Good Cards" towards auction houses is a mistake for sellers. There are times when you will do better with the Auction Houses and times when you will do better with EBay. I firmly believe that there are significant volumes of folks that do either Auction Houses or EBay. Of course there are many who are relentless, like those of us on this board, that scour both Auctions and EBay.

I recently sold my N162 Anson on EBay (I know that there are those that think a card in PSA 3 form is anything but a "Good Card" but give me some leeway on this one). I really believed that it would do well...not because they had been unavailable lately, but because no one had listed one on EBay lately. There had been a few of similar grade in the Auction Houses in the past year, but not EBay. Sure enough, it sold for $3,550 while the most recent one at auction sold for $3,280. I netted roughly $3,350. I would suspect that the person selling in the auction netted something close to $2,800.

The mistake I have made, is when I see a "Good Card" sell and net a strong price I have put my similar card on EBay thinking that it will net the same AND IT NEVER DOES. I think a perception is created in that instance that they are readily available. My N162 Anson hadn't been listed in so long that I am sure several bidders felt they better jump on it now.

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Posted By: peter chao

Cat,

It does seem like sometimes you get better results from E-Bay, but I believe it is mostly people that are late to the hobby that are buying. For instance a PSA 10 '87 Fleer Bonds may sell for big bucks on E-Bay, but for the rest of us it's like, why would we want to bid on this.

Peter

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Posted By: Cat

Peter:

With great pride I can say I haven't checked the results of a PSA 10 1987 Fleer Bonds card on EBay lately.